


Love, as a Series of Events

by eternallamppost



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color, Trans Female Character, Trans Lesbian Character, a sex scene, gays!, superpowers!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 12:58:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8402605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternallamppost/pseuds/eternallamppost
Summary: Carolynn and Jackie are on the run, in love, and okay.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I hope you enjoy this short story. It's pretty sappy, and I like it a lot.

“They may not dissect you.” Jackie mused, pulling the toothpick from her mouth and flicking it out the passenger’s side window. “I think there’s a chance they wouldn’t bother.”

Carolynn looked at her from the drivers’ side, vaguely amused, mostly curious where Jackie was going. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Jackie, turning the radio down and putting her feet on the dash. “Here’s how I see it: we’re a couple of nobodies, right? Barring our minority status and your, uh- “ Jackie chewed her lip before continuing. “Predicament. There’s no way a couple of bumfuck nobodies like us are the first people to ever discover this. It just follows, right? There’s no way two teenage girls discovered superpowers. It just follows.”

“Sure, it follows. It follows that superpowers aren’t real at all, but here we are.” Carolynn replied, trying not to let the hypothetical tone of the conversation bother her.

“I guess. But like- you know what I mean. Assume your thing isn’t the first thing like it. There’s no way the government doesn’t have some sort of solution, right? I dunno, it just feels weird to me to assume they would kill you. Somebody had to have found out first, and gone through the proper channels, and come out okay, right?” Jackie looked at her past sunglasses.

“What are the proper channels for something like this?” Carolynn said, a light blue laugh teetering on the back of her tongue. “And who was first, if not me? Some 60-year-old man in a POW MIA hat tottering up to a postal worker and saying ‘Scuse-me-pardon-me miss, but I seem to have developed super strength’?”

Jackie smiled. “Fuckin’ probably. A man would get the first and best superpower.”

Carolynn feigned offense and horror. “Super strength? The best superpower? What’s wrong with you?”

“Well, what’s better than super strength? Don’t you wanna fight crime?”

“Hell no, I don’t wanna fight crime! What did crime ever due to me? No, the best superpower is shapeshifting, by far.” Carolynn replied. Jackie half-frowned, her hand reaching across the column to rest on Carolynn’s knee, bony fingers twirling absent mindedly at the fringe on the bigger girl’s dress.

“That makes sense. Hey, sorry.”

“What for?”

“I get it, you know? I mean I don’t, and I can’t, but I do.” Jackie looked up sympathetically. Shapeshifting made perfect sense for Carolynn. There was a lot she wanted to change about herself.

Carolynn smiled a half smile, pushing back tears and taking Jackie’s hand. “I know.”

Jackie turned the radio back up, cycling through channels before becoming wholly dissatisfied with its offerings and scrambling for a CD case kept in the backseat. After a light amount of bickering, they settled on a Metric album and pushed on.

 ---

“You might be right.” Carolynn muttered, much later that night. The pair had stopped at a motel somewhere north of Indianapolis. The motel had looked just run down enough for them to afford it and just nice enough to offer discretion. Jackie rolled over to face her, resting her hand on the bigger girls hip.

“Yeah? I mean, sure, but, yeah?”

“Yeah. They might not dissect me, but…I don’t know that I like the alternatives either. Does that make sense? They might fully understand me. They might know exactly what made me this way, and what I can do, and what my limits are. It might be as simple as getting a chip in my leg. Or it might be as hard as a chip in my leg and a gun in my hand. And I dunno. You remember when Chelsea was missing late last year?”

“Chelsea Manning? Yeah.”

“I couldn’t breathe all that week. She was okay, and everything was okay, but she just…disappeared for a week right after they announced she would get her surgery. And maybe they’d treat their super soldiers better, but…maybe not. I feel more comfortable now than I have in ages.” Carolynn turned her eyes upwards to Jackie’s, smiling slightly. “Here, with you. Wherever I am, with you. I don’t wanna go back. I don’t wanna be who I was, and I definitely don’t want to be who I was and a pawn for the gubber men.”

Jackie smiled at that, squeezing Carolynn’s hip. “You’re right. The gubber men ain’t gonna git ya.” Jackie’s fake southern drawl was awful, and Carolynn laughed loud and sweet, and Jackie loved the sound of it.

They slept well, and long. It was fourteen hours until they woke up, rushing out the door. They had paid in cash, and were fugitives anyway, so who gave a shit if it was two hours past checkout time?

\---

“It might not _be_ superpowers, you know.” Carolynn mused from the passenger’s seat. They’d gone through a Wendy’s, and Carolynn was still working on her fries.

“What else could it be?” Jackie said, mildly confused. “I mean, we both saw it.”

“No, I know, but superpowers are a semi modern thing, you know? Maybe it’s like…a blessing from the gods. Maybe it’s ~magic~.” Carolynn answered, wiggling her fingers for emphasis. Jackie snorted through a fry. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re gonna go to Hogwarts, and you’re gonna be fucken pleased about it!” Jackie roared, in her absolute worst cockney accent, and the two girls fell over laughing.

\---

They reached her aunt’s old house two days later, and were glad to see it empty. Crossing the border had been terrifying- all papers and explanations- but their passports were somehow still good. Thirty minutes from the Michigan/Canada border saw Carolynn and Jackie in tears on the side of the road.

“They aren’t even looking!” Carolynn had sobbed, a big, stupid grin on her face. “They haven’t even noticed!”

They had kissed, Carolynn’s hot wet cheek resting joyously against Jackie’s taut brown cheek, a sloppy, sideways, barely functional kiss. Jackie had quietly wondered at the fullness of the bigger girl’s lips, at how soft and quiet they managed to be, when everything about Carolynn was so loud and lovely.

The house was old, older than either of them had guessed. Carolynn’s aunt had left it to her when she died, only a few months after Carolynn was born, and Carolynn had no idea if her parents had leased it or sold it or what. When they arrived, the house was semi furnished and coated in a thick layer of dust. Carolynn had no key, but the wood around the lock was rotted so long ago a sharp rock punched it out, and they were in.

They had barricaded the door, made easier by Carolynn’s ‘predicament’, and found a bed as soon as they could. There was a queen in what they guessed was the master bedroom, with gorgeous dark green bedding and an array of pillows. After all were thumped out sufficiently – “No bugs!” Jackie had exclaimed – they slept for the rest of the day.

When they woke up, it was morning, and sunlight streamed in through thick, square-panel windows. Jackie rolled over to Carolynn, wrapping her arm around Carolynn’s stomach, her head on her breast, and yawned. Carolynn held her, her fingertips etching silent circles into the smaller girl’s shoulder. She smiled quietly, and kissed her forehead. Jackie leaned up to kiss her, planting tiny kisses on Carolynn’s chin and cheeks, pulling herself up for a simpler angle. Carolynn kissed back, gentle but hurried, afraid of how much time they had.

 Jackie pulled Carolynn over, the bigger girl positioned above her, frantically kissing now, long and soulful kisses. Jackie moaned, the sound breaking the morning’s silence, almost blasphemous in the morning sunlight. Carolynn’s teeth found the tender flesh of Jackie’s neck, nibbling slowly and methodically down her shoulder and collarbone to her breasts. Jackie pulled Carolynn back up, desperately needing more kisses, and paused only to pull Carolynn’s pajama dress from the bigger girl’s shoulders.

Carolynn obliged her, letting her love for Jackie pool deep in her stomach, pushing away everything else. Her lips found Jackie’s as Jackie brought her legs up over Carolynn’s hips, and they gasped together as Carolynn entered her. They made love there, in the dust-tinted sunbeams of the ancient home, all morning – and stopped not to rest but to eat, and to prepare their new home.

\---

Jackie was smarter than the people in their old home had given her credit for. She spent the afternoon forging documents to put this house in their name- it was relatively easy, as Carolynn had the deed on her and Jackie had fake IDs for them both. A writ of sale proving that one Samuel Mendes had sold the home to Carolynn Aerus and Jacqueline Willow, a visit to the post office, a visit to the utilities office, and they were done.

Carolynn had hated having to see her dead name, even for the time it took to sign a writ of sale (although she smiled at the irony of her buying a house from herself). She battled the inevitable wave of dysphoria with a yellow dress, blue roses and purple lilies dotted across it. She looked beautiful, and Jackie said so every time their eyes met, which was often.

Carolynn sung Jackie’s praises for her deft and accurate forgeries, and Jackie sung Carolynn’s for her impeccable homemaking. As soon as they had electricity, Carolynn had begun vacuuming. The house was a good size- not a mansion, certainly, but more than enough space for the two of them. The refrigerator was an easy fix, and Carolynn blushed at the sight of Jackie in a navy blue tanktop and twirling a wrench. There was a broken window leading to the basement, which Carolynn theorized had been destroyed at an attempt at stealing the house’s wiring. Luckily for them, no such wiring had been taken- the walls in the basement were unmarked.

It took three days for them to make it their home- clean, furnished, and theirs. They had a ceremony on the day of, both trying champagne for the first time and finding they liked it. They had purchased it, and it was theirs (technically legally, as their fake IDs were a few years off). It was better than anything Jackie had had before- better than silent sips of beer stolen from her father, and much better than the single shot of tequila her brother had given her, roaring with laughter at the sight of her crinkled nose.

They drank, and they watched a movie, and they slept in each other’s arms. They woke, and they kissed, and they cleaned, and they made love.

\---

Carolynn reached over as Jackie walked by, palming her girlfriends’ butt as she passed. Jackie grinned, turning and giving Carolynn a wiggle and a wink. Carolynn laughed, her whole body moving with her shoulders and stomach, and Jackie felt her heart palpitate. Jackie leaned over the little kitchen table, kissing her girlfriend’s forehead and turning back to head into the other room.

Carolynn opened her laptop back up, pulling open the browser. Her article – written under a pseudonym about the importance of empathy in the post-superheroes world, was doing well. The Washington Post had paid her well, and even extended an invitation to come back as a contributor, something Carolynn found so “absolutely grand” – in her words – it had brought her to tears.

It was autumn of 2017, and the trees around their home were gorgeous. A cavalcade of fall colors – pale broken greens, burnt oranges, and crisp yellows drifted into the driveway and yard with growing urgency. They were in love, with each other and with the season. Winter would visit soon, and Carolynn was thrilled to start baking Christmas cookies. Jackie was content with the crisp winds of autumn – the horror movies on television, the endless pumpkin carving sessions, the seasonal treats. She would not deny her girlfriend the thrill of winter, and placated her by trying every single batch of cookies – even when she started baking them in October.

It was autumn of 2017, and President Clinton had signed the Supers Awareness Act. They were still making Marvel movies, so there was never any doubt about them being called supers. The act was simple – only a few pages long and written in toned down legalese. There would be no dissections, and there would be no super soldier programs. There would be no “selective supers service” as some in the GOP had taken to calling it – the draft being replaced completely with supers. There would be no experiments.

In turn, there would be a box on the census. “Are you, or were you once, a super?” A second box, below. “If you answered ‘Yes, I Am’, could your power be used for violence?” A line, just below. “(Optional: Please detail your power in 1-2 short sentences.”

Carolynn filled it out, when it came. Yes. Yes. Telekinetic manipulation. Large objects can be moved, but not quickly. Small objects no problem.

They got a cat. Jackie named her Pharah. They loved her, and knew in their hearts they would be keeping all her kittens.

\---

Carolynn had been keeping tabs on news about superpowers ever since they moved. Her powers had manifested September 4th, 2016. They had moved in March, the next year. A man posted on /x/ claiming to be able to teleport on November 18th, 2016. A Tumblr user with less than 200 followers could fly short distances as of February 22nd, 2017. A woman working for a local news channel caught a bullet on camera on April 9th, 2016.

Jackie pointed out, in the early days of winter, that Carolynn had been first by all accounts. There were too many to keep track of now, as the introduction of Super Protection Programs made it easier to come out than ever. Carolynn let her programs run on an old desktop – she checked in every Tuesday to update an excel sheet of powers and their arrival dates. She could no longer pour over every story, but Jackie was right: no one had yet admitted to having a power manifest before September 4th, 2016. The thought made her smile. It made Jackie more sure of their decision to leave. It made them both glad for each other.

\---

Carolynn called her mother for the first time since they left on December 25th, 2016. She was drunk on eggnog, and love for her girlfriend, and made an impulse decision.

“I never told anyone.” Her mother sobbed, quietly into the phone. “I told the college you died, and I told your siblings you left, and I never told anyone why. I promise.”

“I believe you, mom.” Carolynn said, crying noiselessly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

“I know.” Her mom said, sniffling. “I know you didn’t. You were so strong, and I’m so, so proud of you.” A pause. “Is Jackie there?”

Carolynn smiled. “Yes, she is.”

“I always liked her. She brought us dinner, that one thanksgiving when the plumbing broke.”

“It was horrible.”

“It was.” Her mom laughed, and Jackie could hear over the phone where Carolynn got her belly laugh. “It was awful, and we ate it up and then some.”  She quieted. “Will you come visit?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to. I don’t know if I can get across the border again. I want to see you, though. Could I buy you a plane ticket?”

Carolynn’s mother gasped quietly. “You can afford plane tickets? I’ll definitely visit! How about February, for your birthday?”

“It sounds like a plan, Mom.”

“Care?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t around for you when you were…changing. I’m sorry I held on to who I thought you were for so long.”

Carolynn sobbed, sharp, and full of relief. “It’s okay.”

“I love you, baby. Merry Christmas.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKNhPpUR0Pg is the video Jackie references.
> 
> I hope you liked it!


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